The count of Hillary Clinton’s work emails now deemed classified will rise to 600 or 700 when the State Department releases its next batch of emails to the public Friday.
Politico reported that the latest trove of work-related emails from Clinton’s personal server contains between 200 and 300 messages now marked with the lowest classification designation. About 7,000 pages of emails will be made public in the release.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said that none of the emails now marked classified "were marked classified at the time they were sent or received." Most of the emails set for release Friday were sent or received by the former secretary of state between 2011 and 2012, save a few from 2009 and 2010 that haven’t been made public in earlier releases.
The release of Clinton emails in September saw 215 messages marked classified, three of them designated "secret."
While the State Department says the newly classified messages were not classified at the time they were sent or received, the inspector general of the intelligence community did determine from a small sample he reviewed that two emails held on Clinton’s system contained top secret--the highest classification--information at the time they were sent. Other intelligence agencies have backed up this finding.
Clinton has maintained that she never sent nor received information marked classified on her personal email. The FBI is currently investigating her personal server for the possible mishandling of classified information.
After the emails are released Friday, the State Department will have made public about half of the work emails Clinton provided to the government agency.